An outbreak of a foreign animal disease would devastate the United
States pork industry because exports would immediately be cut off, economists
warn in a new report.
The impact would be even greater in Canada where 70 per cent of
pork is exported.
Longer-term an outbreak “would batter pig farmers and related
allied industries, slash tens of thousands of jobs, lead to substantial costs
for state and federal governments and — as a result of declining pork prices —
have a deleterious effect on the rest of the agricultural sector, the experts
say.
It could take years to restore export markets which currently
account for 26per cent of U.S. pork production. On the domestic front,
pork prices would ultimately drop dramatically, the experts added.
Estimates of the financial impact for each of the three
trade-limiting diseases — foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), classical swine fever
(CSF) and African swine fever (ASF) — are in the billions per year, according
to researchers such as Dr. Dermot Hayes, an agricultural economist at Iowa State
University.
Hayes led a recent study that estimated U.S.
pork and beef industries would lose about $12.9 billion a year in exports if there
were an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.
The study also projected a decline in corn prices by about 20
cents per bushel and soybeans by 60 cents per bushel.
Looking specifically at swine diseases, Hayes estimated that in
the first year of an outbreak of African Swine Fever, revenue losses would be
$8 billion for pork, $4 billion for corn and $1.5 billion for soybeans.
Under the study’s Classical Swine Fever scenario, pork prices
could drop 45 per cent while corn prices could decline by about 10 cents per
bushel and soybean prices by 50 cents per bushel. Hayes and his team of
researchers attributed the projected soybean losses to the amount of soybean
meal used in the hog industry.
Another FMD study, led by Dr. Ted Schroeder, an agricultural
economist at Kansas State University, projected a 95 per cent drop in all U.S.
red-meat exports — including lamb, as well as live animals — for at least three
months after authorities have cleared the last FMD case.2
In addition, there would be other assorted costs such as
industry response, disease containment and elimination, and animal euthanasia
or disposal, said Patrick Webb, DVM, director of swine health programs,
National Pork Board (NPB).
“We’re talking billions and billions of dollars of lost revenue
just from one case being reported,” Webb told Pig Health Today.
“It would take an extremely hard hit on the agricultural economy, across all
sectors because the agricultural economy and our communities are so tied
together. If one sector is hurting because of a disease issue, it usually ends
up hurting others.”
Ultimately, a sustained FAD outbreak could cost the US
agricultural sector about $200 billion over 10 years, according to estimates by
Schroeder and Hayes.
